Mets' blockbuster deal for Francisco Lindor happened 5 years ago
The Mets' Francisco Lindor looks on during a Grapefruit League spring training game at Roger Dean Stadium on March 17, 2021 in Jupiter, Florida. Credit: Getty Images/Michael Reaves
It was the first splash of the Steve Cohen Era.
The Mets’ last five seasons have been defined by enormous ups and downs, but the trade for Francisco Lindor certainly can be remembered as a positive.
On Jan. 7, 2021 – exactly five years ago Wednesday, and 62 days after Cohen became the Mets’ majority owner – the team acquired Lindor and Carlos Carrasco from Cleveland for Andres Gimenez, Amed Rosario, pitching prospect Josh Wolf and centerfield prospect Isaiah Greene.
“There are some players – many players – that you watch and you appreciate,” then-Mets president Sandy Alderson said at the time. “There are other players that you watch and you smile. And that smile is not just a function of appreciation but also kind of an empathetic reaction to how they play the game.
“I think Lindor is the kind of player that makes one smile.”
Lindor, 32, nicknamed “Mr. Smile,” provided Mets fans with plenty of grins in his first five seasons in Flushing. But not right out of the gate.
The shortstop agreed to a 10-year, $341 million contract extension on March 31, 2021, hours before his first regular-season game as a Met. After inking the deal, at the time the third-most lucrative contract in baseball history by total value, Lindor noted “341 million reasons for me to go out there and play the game the right way.”
But his first Mets season was his worst, posting career-lows in batting average (.230) and OPS (.734). He heard early-season boos, batted .194 entering June and missed 37 games in the summer with an oblique injury.
In four seasons since? He has produced at the level that might eventually send him to Cooperstown.
Though he somehow has played in only one All-Star Game as a Met, Lindor has finished in the top 10 of the NL MVP voting in each of the last four seasons, including a runner-up finish to Shohei Ohtani in 2024. Lindor’s best season, in terms of wins above replacement, came with Cleveland in 2018, when he had a 7.3 WAR. The next three have come in the last three seasons: 2024 (6.9), 2023 (6.1) and 2025 (5.9).
In his first six seasons (777 games) with Cleveland, Lindor posted a .285/.346/.488 slash line with 138 homers, 411 RBIs and a 28.3 WAR. He has produced similar results in five Mets seasons (758 games): a .261/.338/.462 slash line with 141 homers, 445 RBIs and a 27.3 WAR.
“It’s one of the hardest things in baseball to get: a shortstop superstar player in his prime,” then-Mets general manager Jared Porter said five years ago.
Lindor has played in 16 playoff games with the Mets, 13 in their run to the 2024 National League Championship Series. That postseason he had a .275/.387/.490 slash line with two homers, including a sixth-inning grand slam that jolted the Mets to a series-clinching win over the Phillies in Game 4 of the National League Division Series.
And Lindor was a major reason why the team got to those playoffs in the first place. Playing through a back injury, Lindor's ninth-inning, go-ahead, two-run homer in the first game of a double header against Atlanta on the Monday after the final day of the season helped the Mets clinch a postseason berth.
The non-Lindor parts of the trade turned out pretty well for the Mets, too.
Carrasco, 38, had a rocky Mets tenure with a 5.21 ERA in 295 2/3 innings from 2021-23. But he was steady in 2022, going 15-7 with a 3.97 ERA in 29 starts.
Gimenez, 27, an impressive rookie with the Mets in 2020, spent the next four seasons in Cleveland. He earned an All-Star nod in 2022 and Gold Gloves at second base from 2022-24. This past season in Toronto was his worst; he had career-lows in batting average (.210) and OPS (.598), though he was within arm’s reach of winning the World Series.
Rosario, 30, who played four seasons with the Mets and was once their top prospect, now is a utility bat for the Yankees. He hit .278 in three seasons with Cleveland but has been on five teams since July 2023. He has compiled respectable numbers over the last two seasons (.279/.307/.400) but has played only 165 games.
Neither prospect the Mets dealt has reached Double-A. Wolf, 25, was the Mets’ second-round selection in 2019 and pitched for the Giants’ High-A affiliate last year. Greene, 24, was the Mets’ 2020 second-rounder and played 42 games in the MLB Draft League last summer.
The Mets have made dramatic lineup changes around Lindor, the only remaining starter from his first game with the team. He now is the team’s second-longest-tenured player (behind David Peterson) after cornerstones Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil and Edwin Diaz departed this offseason. Lindor and Juan Soto are the faces of the Mets entering 2026.
"To the fans in New York: Here we go, baby," Lindor said after being extended. "Here we go. We have 11 years together. I can’t wait. … It’s going to be a special run."
Here’s to six more years.
Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports' general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
